Losing an AirTag
• 329 words • 2 min
A friend lost his AirTag today.
It was unfortunate. On the bright side, the item the AirTag was attached to was not misplaced.
The best course of action at this point is to simply let go1. This may be a good opportunity to downsize (do you really need {N} air tags?). Or it could be a good time to buy a new one.
Why? There simply isn’t much you can do.
In the best-case scenario you can play detective and retrieve the AirTag
yourself2. Follow your heart the directions in the “Find My” app and hope
for the best. If it’s in the open, you’re golden; if it ended up in a private
property, good luck.
In the second best-case scenario, when a good3 samaritan is involved, you can have your AirTag opt into sharing your contact information (phone number or email), so that folks can reach out to you to arrange4 a return. This can be done via the “Find My” app.
There are no other good scenarios, and this is what happened today.
In this case: Do not disconnect the AirTag from your account. Hold on firmly to it. Let it go from your mind but do not, under any circumstances, let it go from your Apple account. If you do so, you’ll allow others to adopt the AirTag for themselves. If you do not do so, the AirTag can only be used as a paper weight: it’s completely worthless as a tech gadget for as long as it’s still associated with you, and only you, its original and sole proprietor.
-
The situation would have been waaaay different should the tracked item have been lost as well. ↩︎
-
I did this once. Thank goodness the AirTag was on the floor where I originally dropped it. ↩︎
-
Being good is not enough, the samaritan needs to be an Apple user as well. ↩︎
-
Depending on the country where you live, such an arrangement may or may not be free. Oh well. ↩︎